It’s an issue for veterans living in rural areas, access to services and support for Veteran Affairs.
Last week, Lake County voted to raise money for a Veterans Affairs Department in order to assist their local vets.
“There’s a lot of guys up here that need help boy,” says Army veteran Steve Waterman.
Lake County, like many places, has a strong yet aging veteran population. And before they past a millage last week, they had little resources to help them with their care.
“Insurance issues or medical issues,” says county commissioner and Army veteran John Brunn, “The accredited counselor can help.”
The new tax income will be used to form a Veterans Affairs Department in the county and hire a dedicated counselor to handle questions these aging veterans will certainly have as they look for help.
“Most of our vets are from the Korean War and Vietnam,” says Brunn, “Now the Gulf Wars but we don’t have too many young veterans and the county.”
The millage the county was asking for wasn’t even that big. In the end it will only raise about $58,000 for them to get this department up and running. It wasn’t that big of an investment but it can turn out to be a big pay off when it comes to the vets.
“They’re going to learn all the paperwork they’re going to learn everything,” says Brunn, “So they will be able to help us out tremendously.”
The closest Veterans Clinic from Baldwin is in Cadillac. That’s where Waterman goes for his help, and he only does because he was lucky enough to find a person, much like the counselor, that knew what he needed.
“She filled out all the paperwork and everything and I signed it and then within less than two weeks I was in Cadillac,” says Waterman.
Now other vets around the county can get the help Steve did, right here in their own community.
“There’s a lot of guys that are in pretty tough shape,” says Waterman, “There’s a lot of old-timers that are in here.”
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